Reading John Suk

As regular readers of this blog will know I read all of John Suk‘s posts. John’s journey of doubt has fascinated me for a number of reasons. He’s from the same denomination, he was a high profile leader in it, he was just a few years ahead of me in Seminary and I rented an apartment from him for a year. Most of all, perhaps, because I understand his doubts. In understood his book. I understand given our place in the stream of our culture why he’s made the decisions he has. I hope that when I write about him I do so generously and fairly. He can always chime in if he wishes in the comments to set the record straight or offer his two cents.

This most recent post made me sad. It talks about how doing weddings has changed. I’m not sad that he knows more about marriage now through the work of his wife. That’s all good. I’m not sad that he no longer offers the kinds of easy platitudes he offered in what he describes as “faith” or at least less doubtful days. Age, experience and maturity brings that on. I’m sad because what I feel in the piece is what I sense in the culture about losing the place of the church or the gospel. I fear he’s been reduced to a master of ceremonies whose primary advantage is that the church offers a more festive, elegant or nostalgic setting than does a justice of the peace. It’s mostly decoration now, like wearing a cross can be cool or doing yoga is good for your health mental attitude instead of escaping samsara.

Secularity

I’ve been having a running discussion on Calvin-In-Common on secularism and its impact on our religious imagination and institutions. A big part of that impact is the divorce between the morals and wisdom of traditional religion from their historical and metaphysical assertions. It opens up the glib appropriation of the world’s religious artifacts for modern therapeutic and lifestyle consumption. It makes the priests, ministers, rabbis, monks and nuns into shop keepers of religious curiosities available for parties or just to make your home feel more spiritual or meaningful.

The Stumbling Stone

Another one of John’s post that haunted me was on Jesus’ racial slurs. John of course knows his Bible far better than many who simply imagine Jesus to be a rather docetic symbol of absolute tolerance and unconditional acceptance. Jesus could have a sharp tongue and say some things that “let the dead bury their own dead” or to his mother “Woman, why do you involve me…”

I also remind people that Jesus was killed for a reason. He greatly upset enough people that established political enemies who couldn’t agree on much or work together towards much could at least agree that their world would be better without him and so they had him killed. If you’re imagining that Jesus wouldn’t hurt a fly you’re barking up the wrong religion. He at fish and lamb and sent pigs and fish to their ends in either the sea or fishermen’s nets. His disciples are portrayed as most often not really understanding what he said or did and of insufficient courage to abandon him at his execution only to find great boldness after his alleged resurrection and ascension.

Despite all of the problems and qualms we have with Jesus, whether they come to us from the gospel accounts or out doubts about their veracity a good deal of the reason people cling to him and/or his name is because they believe he will make a real difference in this world and the next. If I need to deliver to someone a quick and sharp definition of what I think a real Christian is it is a person who trusts Jesus more than they trust themselves.

The Unnecessary Pastor

As a pastor I wind up doing a lot of strange things. Pastors can sometimes be community janitors. We help relieve lonely people of their loneliness. We give food to the hungry. We help people who are in need find what they need to get through another day. We unplug church toilets. We listen to people’s woes and sometimes petty complaints. We carry groceries or build a network for dog sitters or meal volunteers. None of these things bother me because I like seeing people get the help they need.

I also believe, however, that like Jesus who did miracles (unlike me unless you want to be nostalgic and call my list of the mundane above miraculous as people sometimes do) the importance of the miracles wasn’t simply in the relief they offered or the fix they delivered. The importance was in the sign that they were of the in-breaking kingdom of shalom, well-being, justice, the end of the age of decay.

I have been blessed for most of my life to live and minister in the midst of a lot of hurting people. The hurt isn’t the blessing, the blessing is on how my helplessness in the midst of the hurt leads me to hope and believe that this isn’t all that human history has to offer the poor of the earth.

I’ve been reading some about the plight of Romanian orphans. While I praise God for the doctors, social workers, politicians, therapists that seek to relieve the suffering of these poor victims of a horrible regime, I also know that this is just one tiny piece of a world of damaged people. I regularly see the results in adulthood of childhood abuse and neglect, people’s inability to bond, to trust, to commit themselves to good relationships, etc. and while I know that our society trusts the good doctors, therapists and social workers who try to help, I see the dramatic insufficiency of all of our efforts and this is only one tiny aspect of our broken world in a very affluent corner of it. The enormity of loss in the age of decay is overwhelming and the best efforts of saints and healers along only salve the smallest part of the pussy wound.

It is easy to look at the wound of the world and see the pastor as completely unnecessary. What does he contribute really? Make people feel better giving them hopes of heaven or consolation?

The Declaration

It’s alarming how unfruitful Jesus’ ministry was, just like Isaiah’s. Always hearing but never understanding… Proclaiming but people only followed for the trinkets and the handouts. That is very believable to me.

At the same time I do believe like Ivan’s cynical speech. I believe with Sam as he sees the star above the clouds of Mordor. In the moments when this grips my heart the wait of loss is less crushing and my power to forgive and extend grateful service is enlivened. I know how this is for me and I want my people to share in it as well, so I preach.

Now I know that there is doubt. I’ve got my share in other moments. I know that skeptics will say “you can’t prove or justify these naked assertions” and I say perhaps. But if all my doubts are true and my assertions are unfounded why should I care to follow them. If existence is such that all oughts are merely construction then I may construct any I choose and I choose to stand with Jesus as known through his church with the declaration of the resurrection and the life of the age to come and believe that there will be both justice and consolation for the broken children of Romania and the rest of the world as well.

I find the declaration sufficiently broad and applicable that I can say to people in both happy and sad marriages that there is a space in marriage where the kingdom may be manifest or betrayed. I can say to sufferers that there is refuge in the name of Jesus that can make the ugliness of this world sometimes bearable and even joyful as Paul found on the floor of a Philippian prison. I can, in the moments I want to use people and find cheap ways to save and heal myself at the expense of others the power to absorb more loss and bear more hurt because one greater than I did it for me. This is an immense power that the church, complete with its sins and errors has stubbornly exhibited for centuries in this world and I will assert that this power is present today and for us. This is why I preach, un-useful though I be.